


Painting of an Angel

by decay_as_a_life_form



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Hwa and Joong are artists, M/M, kinda romantic?, post hook-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26466973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decay_as_a_life_form/pseuds/decay_as_a_life_form
Summary: Was it rude to paint somebody you might never talk to again? Probably.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74





	Painting of an Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [thatstarlitsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatstarlitsky/pseuds/thatstarlitsky). Log in to view. 



> As always: Thank you to my Angel for beta-reading <3 I love you.

Pretty. Angelic. That is how Seonghwa would describe the person currently lying in his bed.  
The sunlight hit his face beautifully. The boy, however, did not wake. If anything, he seemed even more relaxed.  
Bruises from last night's adventures coloured his neck and chest. Seonghwa had apologized for the first one, but the pretty boy he had picked up from the gay bar last night had asked for more. There were some on his thighs, too, hidden by the blanket currently wrapped around him.

It was quite tempting; having a beautiful person lying in his bed, the light hitting him just right. Was it rude to paint somebody you might never talk to again? Probably. But the temptation was too strong.

As quietly as possible, Seonghwa rearranged his easel to face the boy in his bed and took out his nice oil paints. 

He painted for quite a while. The boy – Hongjoong, Seonghwa remembered – was a quiet sleeper. No snoring, no turning... only a few soft noises. 

Seonghwa was about to paint Hongjoong’s earrings when he heard movement. Startled, he looked to his bed. He had promised himself that he would only paint a rough sketch. That he would stop before the subject of his painting woke. It was a bit too late for that now. 

The pretty boy in his bed squinted at him sleepily. “Were you painting me?” He sounded exactly like he looked. Tired. It was quite beautiful, Seonghwa thought, the way he slurred his words with a sleep-ridden voice. 

Seonghwa grimaced, “I, uh… sorry. It’s just- the way- the lighting was very pretty- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have painted you without, uh… your consent.”  
Feeling guilty, he hastily started putting his paintbrushes away. 

Hongjoong hummed. It would have sounded understanding had Seonghwa felt more relaxed and not so guilty.  
“If I model for you, do I get to shower and have breakfast here?”, Hongjoong asked.  
Seonghwa stared at him. “Really?”  
“So that’s a yes?” Hongjoong asked.  
“Yes, absolutely.”

It seemed like this was going well after all. 

“I’ll be painting for a while, though…”  
“That’s fine. I have nowhere to be.”

Hongjoong made sure to lie down in the exact position he was before and closed his eyes again.  
Seonghwa was surprised to find him asleep not too long after. He decided to let him be and continued to work in peaceful silence until the late morning.

After some time had passed, Seonghwa put his brush down. The painting wasn’t done yet but it had a base structure and was finished enough for him to know what he needed to paint without having a model for it. He had taken some pictures with his phone as well. Once Hongjoong was awake, he was going to ask him if he could keep them as a reference.

Seonghwa cleared his throat, deciding on how to wake the sleeping boy. After all; it wasn’t every day you had to wake up a one-night-stand that was going to stay for a while.

When he had woken Hongjoong up, he showed him the bathroom and gave him a toothbrush. He then headed to the kitchen to make breakfast.

“So… Do you always do this?”  
Hongjoong’s voice startled Seonghwa, making him almost spill the tea he was pouring.

“Sorry?”  
“Do you always do this?”, Hongjoong sat down at the table, “Paint your hookups without their consent and then make them breakfast to make up for it?”

“Uh,” Seonghwa cleared his throat, stumbling over his words, “No. Sorry, it was just… The lighting was really pretty which is rare and–”  
Hongjoong laughed, “Relax. I’m just teasing you. I’m an artist myself, I know how it is.”  
Seonghwa was surprised, “Really? What kind of art do you make?”  
He put the tea next to the stack of pancakes he had made. 

“I’m a graffiti artist.”  
Hongjoong made a sound between a laugh and a scoff when he saw Seonghwa grimace.  
“I’ll have you know that everything I do is legally painted. Thank you very much.”  
“Sorry, I know that not everybody who does graffiti is like… you know… but… It… It’s just really not my thing.”  
Hongjoong took a sip of his tea. “No, but imagine if all those electrical boxes and things were just white. They’d get dirty after a while and you’d see it. Because they’re white. And the government has better things to do than cleaning electrical boxes. Also, they’d look boring without art.”

Seonghwa stared at him. White electrical boxes weren’t boring. They were nicer than the painted ones but Hongjoong had a point with them becoming dirty.

“Is that why you became an artist?”, Seonghwa asked, ”To prevent electrical boxes from looking dirty?” Hongjoong snorted into his tea.  
“No. I became an artist because I thought the world needed some more colour in it.”  
Seonghwa nodded and poured more sugar into his tea. 

Although Seonghwa had been a bit irked to find out that Hongjoong was a graffiti artist, he found that he quite liked the shorter man’s enthusiasm about art and diversity. Hongjoong was an interesting person to talk to.  
They also had complementary views about the world although Hongjoong’s opinions were mostly stronger than his own.

He was allowed to keep the photos.

XXX

It was Saturday and Hongjoong and Yunho had dragged a scowling Jongho and an excited Mingi to the museum with them.  
Yunho had to gather information for an essay and Hongjoong had taken it as an excuse to join.  
(Jongho had reminded Hongjoong that he didn’t need excuses to do things for himself but Hongjoong had effectively drowned him out, claiming he was there to help Yunho.)

They had been there for at least half an hour already. Jongho on his phone and lagging behind. Yunho had gathered a lot of information about an artist he liked.  
They were about to go on to a different artist when Mingi yelled to get Hongjoong’s attention. Hongjoong prepared himself for yet another painting of a woman with her titties out and followed Mingi’s voice. 

He didn’t get to scold Mingi for shouting in a museum once he saw what the younger was looking at.  
“Dude, that looks like you”, Mingi exclaimed and pointed aggressively at a painting.  
Hongjoong gaped at the art piece. It didn’t just look like him. It was him.

He hadn’t seen the finished piece before but it was clear as rain that this was the same painting that Seonghwa had started about two months ago. It was beautiful. 

Jongho caught up with them. “What’s going on?”  
“Oh wow, it really does look like you”, Yunho said, stepping closer.  
“Right!?” Mingi was clearly very excited about his discovery. 

“Oh my god. Hey, is your name Hongjoong?”  
Startled, Hongjoong turned to the stranger who had approached them.

“You must be Hongjoong. You totally look like him. Kim Hongjoong, yeah?”  
“Wha- How do you know my name?”, Hongjoong stuttered. He was still trying to process the fact that Seonghwa had actually finished the painting he made of him.  
He had put effort into it. Enough effort to put it in a museum. In a museum where thousands of people could see Hongjoong’s face.

“I’m friends with the artists,” the stranger said, “He talked about you a lot. Actually still does.”  
Hongjoong went pink at that.  
“You met Hwaseong?”, Yunho’s eyes went wide.  
(A quick glance at the info-plate told Hongjoong that Seonghwa’s pseudonym was, indeed, Hwaseong.)

Yunho went on: “That’s so cool! He’s one of my favourite artists- why didn’t you tell me?”  
Hongjoong pursed his lips thinking about what to say. Luckily, Seonghwa’s friend saved him from answering the question.  
“My name is San, by the way. That over there, with the pink hair, is Yeosang and ponytail-guy is Wooyoung. We’re all Hwaseong’s friends.”

Said other friends had noticed San wasn’t with them anymore and were looking around the place. San waved them over. 

“Look who I found.” San’s grin reminded Hongjoong very much of the cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.  
The friend named Wooyoung gasped: “You’re Kim Hongjoong. No way. Hwa was right, though, you really are tiny.”

Hongjoong spluttered: “Tiny?? I’m not tiny!”  
Mingi and Yunho exchanged glances next to him.

“No, like… He said it in a positive way,”  
Wooyoung explained, waving his hand about, “He likes that you’re shorter than him.”  
“It’s some kink of his or something. Everyone he dated or hooked up with in the past is around your height. Something about him being taller and bigger than his partners and being able to protect them or some shit. I don’t know.”  
Now Hongjoong was spluttering for an entirely different reason. 

The third friend was staring at him.  
“Are you Hongjoong?”, he asked.  
His voice was deeper than expected. There was something slightly off about the way he talked; a bit too loud for the room they were in and sort of strained.

“Yeo.” San tapped his ear. Yeosang rolled his eyes and took something that seemed to be hearing aids out of his pocket.  
That explained why he had sounded off, Hongjoong thought.

“Please,” Jongho said, “We’d like to know more about this. I’m Jongho by the way”  
Hongjoong pushed him back, “There’s nothing more you have to know about this–”  
“Wait, you had a one-night-stand with Hwaseong?”, Yunho interrupted, only now grasping what Wooyoung had implied.  
“Yunho! Will you shut up?”  
“Wait, what??”, Mingi asked, pulling Hongjoong to face him, “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

Hongjoong stared at him.  
“Why… Why didn’t I tell you about this? Why would I!?”

“Dude, he painted you. It’s worth mentioning, don’t you think? He must really like you”, Jongho said and looked back at the painting.  
Hongjoong dismissed him immediately: “No, the lighting was just really interesting.” 

Wooyoung snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s like… a fraction of why he wanted to make this painting.”  
“Hwaseong thinks you’re really pretty,” Yeosang added.  
Hoongjoongs brain short-circuited.  
“What…” 

“He thought you were so pretty, he had to paint you. The light was just an added bonus. Trust us. He drunk-texted us a couple of times whining about how pretty you were and how enthusiastic you are about art although he dislikes graffiti and so on,” San explained.  
“He said some other stuff, too, but I don’t think we should discuss that in public,” Wooyoung grinned.  
“O-oh…” Hongjoong’s gaze met the floor. His ears were tinted pink, betraying how flustered felt.  
One of Seonghwa’s friends chuckled.

Meanwhile, Yunho was looking at the painting with awe.  
“The painting is amazing. That must have been a lot of work.”  
“I think he spent two days straight on it,” Yeosang confirmed, “It’s not the longest he spent on a painting but definitely not the least.”

Hongjoong turned to look at it again.  
It was him, alright. Of course Seonghwa hadn’t managed to portray his exact features but anyone who looked at Hongjoong and then at the painting could see the resemblance.

The strawberry red hair was the only real difference. Hongjoong had dyed his hair brown about two weeks ago. He was planning on growing a mullet, much to Jongho’s dismay.  
The four piercings in his left ear were placed with perfect accuracy. When Hongjoong took a closer look, however, it wasn’t the silver piercings glittering but his face. Seonghwa had put glitter onto his face to depict the light seeping through the window.  
It was so subtle, Hongjoong hadn’t noticed it until he stepped closer. 

There was a crown of light above his head that made Hongjoong frown. It didn’t fit in with the way the light fell. Why had he painted that crown of light? It was clearly intentional but Hongjoong couldn’t figure out what it was until he noticed the title of the work.  
“Painting of an Angel” it read on the little plaque beneath the art. No explanation.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one to notice the name.  
“Angel, huh? Well, this one’s really pure,” Jongho mocked as he pointed at the faint love-bites painted on canvas-Hongjoong’s neck.  
Hongjoong swatted him for the comment.

The marks clearly weren’t a main focus.  
Something in Hongjoong flared up when he recalled the making of them. Seonghwa must have dulled them down a lot. Hongjoong remembered having to cover them up for days after he got them. Yunho and Mingi had teased him for the faint teeth-imprints in a particularly dark bruise.

“You should come back on Tuesday around 2pm”, San mentioned, “Hwaseong will be here to hopefully sell one of his paintings.”  
Hongjoong chewed on his lip. He did want to see the artist again. He had been so kind and thoughtful. The morning he had spent at Seonghwa’s place had been really nice.  
He regretted being too scared to ask for his number but now he had a chance to meet him again.  
Still he asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, absolutely. If you don’t, I’ll have to fight you.”  
There was so much certainty in Wooyoung’s voice it made some of them chuckle.  
Wooyoung grinned. “No, seriously. You really should go. Please. Seonghwa has been talking how much he regrets not asking you on a date although it’s, you know, not the thing you do after hook-ups.”

Hongjoong was chewing nervously on his lip but nodded.

“Okay.”

XXX

Tuesday rolled around and to say that Hongjoong was nervous was an understatement.  
He wanted to make a good second expression on Seonghwa. He had lowkey dressed up, opting to wear his nice shoes instead of his usual beat up ones.

It had taken a lot of effort and promises of ice-cream to convince Yunho and Mingi not to accompany him. He definitely didn’t want either of them to embarrass him in front of Seonghwa.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the museum. Before he could start looking for Seonghwa, a deep voice greeted him.

“Hongjoong, you’re here.” Yeosang was standing next to the entrance. From the looks of it, he was waiting there for a while.

“Seonghwa is this way,” Yeosang said and started walking in a set direction.

“Oh, alright,” Hongjoong hurried to keep up with Yeosang.  
“I won’t hear you, by the way,” Yeosang informed him, “I forgot my hearing aids.”  
Hongjoong nodded quickly, making sure Yeosang caught it before they turned into the section where Seonghwa’s art was displayed.

The artist was dressed completely white, a tight turtleneck hugging his figure making Hongjoong wonder who allowed him to dress like that.  
Suddenly, Hongjoong felt incredibly tense. He stopped in his tracks and watched Seonghwa from afar. He was conversing with San while Wooyoung was sitting on a bench next to them on his phone.

While Hongjoong was busy staring at Seonghwa, Wooyung had noticed Hongjoong’s presence. He winked at Yeosang and went to jab at Seonghwa’s arm.

“Hwaseong~”, he sing-songed.

“What now.”

“Hwaseong just look”, Wooyoung prompted and pulled Seonghwa around. 

“Wooyoung what do you want–”, Seonghwa turned and met Hongjoong’s gaze from across the room, “Oh…”  
Life had not prepared Hongjoong for this in any way.

In five long strides, Seonghwa was standing in front of him. 

“Hongjoong?” Seonghwa’s hand reached up but let it drop after a moment of hesitation. Hongjoong realized a beat later that Seonghwa had meant to touch his face.  
The way Seonghwa was looking at him made it impossible for Hongjoong to look away. 

“Beautiful”, Seonghwa breathed, his eyes never leaving Hongjoong , “You are the most beautiful person I have ever met. You look like an Angel.”  
Hongjoong’s breath hitched hearing those words directed at him.  
Under Seonghwa’s gaze, he felt special.  
It felt like the words Seonghwa used to describe him weren’t even close to what he actually meant. He made Hongjoong feel like a piece of art to be admired. Like he was worth more than money could buy. Hongjoong was thrilled that a person who could create such beauty found him to be comparable to an angel. One of the purest forms of beauty to exist.

Seonghwa reached up again. This time, Hongjoong leaned forward a bit, giving him permission to touch.  
Seonghwa carefully cupped Hongjoong’s face, delicately caressing his jaw, then moving to his cheekbones.  
Hongjoong’s eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into the touch. The moment felt too intimate for a public space yet interlocked perfectly with the museum.  
They stayed like this for a while until Seonghwa softly spoke up.

“I’d like to paint you again. If… you’re okay with that.” There was a hint of uncertainty in Seonghwa’s tone like there was the slightest chance of being rejected.  
“I… yeah. Of course”  
The uncertainty disappeared and made way for a soft smile which seemed to reach out to Hongjoong, caressing his face. 

All of a sudden, somebody called out for Seonghwa, breaking the bubble they had created for themselves. 

Seonghwa looked towards the voice and back to Hongjoong. He took Hongjoong’s hands in his while a grimace cut through his face.  
“I’m so sorry, love.”  
Hongjoong’s heart jumped at the nickname.  
“I have to go. Do you have time this week?”

“Uhm…” Hongjoong mentally checked his calendar. “I’m free on Thursday and Friday.”

“Would you like to have brunch together on Thursday?”, Seonghwa asked.

“As a…”, Hongjoong trailed off, cringing internally when too much of his eagerness bled into his voice.

“As a date, yes,” Seonghwa confirmed.  
Hongjoong smiled broadly and nodded, rolling onto his tiptoes.

Seonghwa’s name was called again. It sounded more urgent this time.

Seonghwa quickly pulled a small strip of paper out of his pocket. “Here, I meant to give you this. I really have to go now.”  
He handed Hongjoong the piece of paper.

“So… I’ll see you on Thursday?”, Seonghwa asked before he turned away.  
“Yeah.” Hongjoong nodded and watched Seonghwa retreat into the museum.

A big smile adorned Hongjoong’s face as he looked at the slip of paper. It was a phone number. “Please call me?” was written underneath.

Hongjoong’s smile lasted the entire way home.  
He took out his phone to text Seonghwa.

“See you on Thursday <3”


End file.
